CRIMINAL JUSTICE REFORM

Why Alan Cares

Alan has spent his life working in low income communities and promoting service opportunities for young people from all backgrounds, including those who have been part of the criminal justice system who joined City Year and became leaders. He has seen firsthand the devastating impact of the “school to prison” pipeline and the prison industrial complex. Alan has also worked in partnership with other social entrepreneurs and organizations such as The BASE, The Corps Network, Green City Force, Harlem, Children’s Zone, Public Allies, ROCA, Year Up and Youthbuild that have demonstrated strategies to break the school to prison pipeline and offer restorative justice for young people.

Our criminal justice system today is fundamentally broken. From policing, to the courtroom, to the penitentiary, structural bias against people of color is baked in. Retributive justice has resulted in too many black and brown men taken out of communities and families. And with a larger focus on punishment than rehabilitation, high recidivism has kept many in the same cycle, right back into the system soon after they come out.

Tackling this broken system means addressing all aspects of the problem. We must end the harmful legal and justice practices which threaten reentry into society, address the societal determinants which skew the prison population, and support community policing efforts.

This is a large-scale, community effort we must undertake. Alan has seen the challenges throughout his career with the populations he served, and continues to listen to those affected, to learn about what we need to do. If elected, he will build a coalition centered around safety, humanity, and recovery.

The Facts

  • In 1972, the United States had more than 300,000 people in jails and prisons. Today, that number is 2.3 million, a 700% increase. There are 6 million people on probation or parole and 70 million with criminal arrests
  • The United States incarcerates 600 people per 100,000 — the highest rate in the world.

  • Following the disastrous war on drugs and 1994 crime bill, the prison population increased from ~200,000 to ~2,000,000, a 1000% increase.
  • It is likely that 1 in 9 men will be incarcerated at some point in their life. For white men, that drops to 1 in 17. For Black men, that increases to 1 in 3. For latino men it’s 1 in 6. Our prisons aren’t only overpopulated, they reflect a history of systemic racism.

For more criminal justice statistics, visit the sentencing project’s website HERE.

ALAN'S ACTION PLAN

Alan believes we need comprehensive criminal justice reform. Prison rates in the US are the highest in the world. In 1974 our incarceration rate was around 350,000, today it is over 2.3 million and disproportionately affects people of color. Our system must be designed for restoration instead of retribution. We must take this on as a justice issue and civil rights issue for our times.

Alan believes in eliminating mandatory minimums. Mandatory minimum sentences haven’t worked. We have judges who should be able to use their judgment based on the facts of each case. Someone who has committed a non-violent drug-related offense is presumably a very small threat to society if any threat at all. We should not be throwing people in prison for these crimes. Doing so only contributes to America’s mass-incarceration problem, and exacerbates the issue of racial disparity in the criminal justice system.

Alan will introduce legislation to outlaw private prisons and end the prison industrial complex. We should not have private prisons in our country. They need to be eliminated. We cannot and should not turn incarceration into an industry when we already have the highest rate of incarceration in the world.

Alan opposes the death penalty. Studies by criminologists in multiple states tell us that the death penalty does not deter crime. Instead, executions cost millions of dollars more per case than life imprisonment, and each year DNA testing exonerates many wrongly accused individuals. The death penalty disproportionately impacts people of color. It has no place in 21st Century America.

Alan will restore Pell Grant access to prisoners. It all comes back to the ideal of rehabilitation. Preventing prisoners from access to Pell Grants essentially prevents their access to education, and therefore their access to rehabilitation. How is one meant to restore their societal trust and values without any chance to improve their life while in prison?

Alan supports restoring voting rights for formerly incarcerated people. The Florida Rights Restoration Coalition is a model for the country, fighting to ensure that there are no poll-taxes on former inmates, which suppress their right to vote. We need to allow the freedom to vote after you serve your time, without hoops and deterrents.

Alan supports adhering to the maximum UN guideline for solitary confinement of 15 days. Solitary confinement is a cruel practice. American prisons should not be in the business of abusing human rights, i.e. torture. Solitary confinement should absolutely be limited to 15 consecutive days, if not even fewer.

Alan believes in eliminating qualified immunity for law enforcement, which allows law enforcement to violate people’s constitutional rights with impunity. There is no point in having constitutional rights if agents of the state are able to infringe upon them.

Alan will work to prohibit the transfer of military weapons from the federal government to state and local law enforcement. These are weapons of war that have no business being used in our communities for law enforcement.